Love, not power saves the world, papal preacher says at service with Vance

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Jesus, who redeemed humanity by giving up his life on the cross, shows that it is not strength that saves the world, but the “weakness” of boundless love, the papal preacher told thousands of people gathered for the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion, including U.S. Vice President JD Vance.

Today’s world, which is “marked by the myth of performance and seduced by the idol of individualism, struggles to recognize moments of defeat or passivity as possible places of fulfillment,” Capuchin Father Roberto Pasolini, preacher of the papal household, said in his homily April 18 in St. Peter’s Basilica.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance, holding their daughter, shares a laugh with his wife, Usha, who is holding their son, before the start of the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican April 18, 2025. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)

The Good Friday service, which commemorates Christ’s passion and death on the cross, was presided over by Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, prefect of the Dicastery for Eastern Churches. But, following tradition, the homily was delivered by the preacher of the papal household.

Pope Francis, who was not present at the service, had asked different cardinals to lead the different liturgical events over Holy Week and Easter as he continues to recover from double pneumonia and a lengthy hospitalization.

Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, attended the liturgy with his wife, Usha, a practicing Hindu, and his three children after meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni earlier in the day. He was in Rome for private talks with Italian and Vatican officials; he was scheduled to meet with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, April 19.

In a post on X April 18 before the liturgy, the vice president said, “I’m grateful every day for this job, but particularly today where my official duties have brought me to Rome on Good Friday.”

“I had a great meeting with Prime Minister Meloni and her team, and will head to church soon with my family in this beautiful city. I wish all Christians all over the world, but particularly those back home in the US, a blessed Good Friday. He died so that we might live,” Vance wrote.

In his homily, Father Pasolini said that Jesus, nailed to the cross and stripped of everything, “chooses to give us his life and his Spirit entirely. It is not a passive surrender, but an act of supreme freedom, accepting weakness as the place where love can become full.”

Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, prefect of the Dicastery for Eastern Churches, lies prostrate as he leads the Good Friday Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican April 18, 2025. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)

“It is not autonomy or great feats that give meaning to life, but the ability to transform limitations into an opportunity for giving. With this gesture, Jesus reveals to us that it is not strength that saves the world, but the weakness of love that holds nothing back and surrenders itself,” he said.

The priest explained the importance of contemplating and venerating the cross during the liturgy as an opportunity to renew one’s trust “in the way God chose to save the world” and in recognizing the cross is “the only possible direction of our lives.”

“We know well that our strength will not be sufficient to accomplish this journey, but the Holy Spirit, who has already filled our hearts with sweet hope, will come to the aid of our weakness to remind us of the most important thing: Just as we have been loved, so we will be able to love — friends and even enemies,” he said.

“When pain, fatigue, loneliness or fear lay us bare, we are all tempted to shut down, to stiffen up, to feign self-sufficiency,” he said. Yet it is during those moments that the truest love becomes possible, when one does not impose oneself, but allows oneself to be helped.

“Asking for what we need, and allowing others to offer it to us, is perhaps one of the highest and most humble forms of love,” Father Pasolini said.

“To do so, we need only to abandon all pride, but also all illusions that we can save ourselves with our own strength. And to recognize that we cannot, and, above all, do not want to live all on our own,” he said.